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March 20, 2013

POINTZ – A Standard of Measure — (RubberMetrics)

Suppose someone tells you “I wore a lot of rubber yesterday”.
OK, what does a “lot of rubber” actually mean?  Did he wear some rubber gloves for a few hours or was he Totally Enclosed for the entire night? Being in a “lot of rubber” is actually a matter of his perspective which may, or may not, coincide with yours. See the problem?  In most cases, it is purely subjective and relative to an individual user.
Suppose, however, there was a standardized, reasonably objective way to measure both the amount and duration of our rubbering sessions that was the same for everyone? This “universal standard” would allow all of us to describe our rubbering experiences with consistency and accuracy. It would also allow us to track or journal our sessions in a more meaningful way, as well.

The “Pointz” system has been around for years but has been presented mostly as a vehicle for bondage and role play. However, at it’s heart is a simple standard of measure that could be used by Rubberists to accurately describe the intensity and duration of their rubber experiences. Ignore the bondage aspect for now – think of Pointz simply as a way to measure and track your rubbering experience. (If you want to include some bondage, that’s fine but it is not required.)
How it works: In the Pointz system standard is based on the duration a garment is worn in proportion to its total body surface area (TBSA) and is expressed in “minutez”. (Note the “z” at the end.)  A “100%” TBSA situation would be to be entirely enclosed in rubber from head to foot with no skin anywhere on the body exposed to the air.  Rubberists call this “Total Enclosure” or “TE”.
The basic idea is actually very simple. The forumla is: % of TBSA times duration in minutes = Pointz.
If you are in 100% Total Enclosure for 100 minutes you earn 100 Pointz.  If, however, you wear some item that covers, say, only 50% of your body for 100 minutes, you would acquire 50 Pointz (Abbreviate as “50z”) .  If you wore that same item for 60 minutes, your Pointz score would be 50% of 60 = 30z.
Where is becomes a bit more complicated is trying to objectively determine what % of the Total Body Surface Area that a particular garment covers. T-shirts, stockings, etc. can be a bit challenging to assess. Fortunately, there is a fairly universal standard used by medical people for assessing burns to the body called the “Rule of Nines” which makes this fairly easy to do.
The Rule of Nines defines each of the following eleven body areas as being approximately 9% of Total Body surface Area. (Genitals make up the final 1%)
  • Head
  • Right arm
  • Left arm
  • Chest
  • Abdomen
  • Upper back
  • Lower back
  • Right thigh
  • Left thigh
  • Right leg (below the knee)
  • Left leg (below the knee)
(Also see Lund-Browder Chart for diagrams and much more detail.)
So, for example, a hood would cover 9% of your body. If you wore that hood for 100 minutes, you would earn 9 Pointz.  Also using this chart, a catsuit with gloves and feet but no hood would cover the entire body except the head, and, therefore would provide 91% coverage. If worn for 100 minutes, you would earn 91 Pointz (91z)
Of course, large numbers of Pointz (minutes) can also be expressed as “Hourz” by dividing by 60. It’s just simple time math.
Using the Pointz system you can create journals or diaries for  documenting your sessions and tracking their cumulative intensity and duration. I have used an OpenOffice Spreadsheet to track my Pointz for several years. The spreadsheet has a line for each item I have worn and includes start and end times, Pointz earned and cumulative totals in hourz.  A reference list helps me keep track of the Pointz % values I have assigned to  each garment I have. I have documented over 5,000 hourz as of this writing.
If you are not inclined to use an electronic spreadsheet, you could journal your Pointz  in a simple paper diary or accounts book.  Just make some columns for start, end, time in minutes, % coverage, item total and cumulative total. Enter and calculate these values for each item you wear.  Keep a reference in the back of the book for listing the TBSA %’s for each of your garments.
Why Bother? Calculating and logging your Pointz is a way of celebrating your fetish. It adds a new dimension to your rubbering sessions by giving you a numerical measure of their intensity and duration as well as a sense of accomplishment as you watch your cumulative totals grow. This “universal standard” also makes communicating about your sessions with other Rubberists more accurate and understandable.  Once you get into the habit of logging your sessions you’ll wonder why you didn’t start doing this years ago!

Here is extensive discussion about the PointZ System.

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1 comment:

  1. For anyone who is interested, I used an adapted version of the early Pointz system to help me make the transition from casual rubber fetishist to being able to regularly spend longer periods in TE back in Jan 2005. Here are my observations:

    Making such a transition is not easy for many of us - even when u want to. Having a system helped me structure my day.

    Recording my experiences meant I learned to recognise patterns of behaviour that helped/hindered my quest.

    Setting realistic targets which progressively and automatically became more challenging meant I was able to have focus to push myself to new levels of experience.

    Actually publishing it to "The World" (or whoever could be bothered reading my blog) meant I felt under some degree of (self imposed) peer pressure to meet my targets. Of course, I could have lied, but that never really occurred to me at the time as what would have been the point?

    Blogging the weekly pointz score eventually drove some people away as it was way too dull for them. I did quietly drop them from the blog, but that did not stop me keeping a private score a little longer until I was sure I no longer needed the Pointz system as my "prop".

    I ended up coming up with a new mantra as my prop for sustaining my new rubber TE oriented lifestyle, but I often think back to how useful the Pointz system was for me back then. I don't think I ever thanked u enough for the system and what it allowed me to achieve.

    My system was bepoke with its own rules, but based on what I had seen in IAR. I have looked at the new standardised pointz system here and think the aim is very good, but have one question: Is the "Total Body Surface Area" a real reflection of the challenge/achievement? Imagine wearing TE from the neck down for 10 hours. Back in the days when I was acclimatising I personally always found that by adding a totally enclosing hood/mask to that combo, I suddenly found it a more challenging (and yet more rewarding) experience. I am not asked for a total rewrite, just some sort of weighting that takes into account the special case of head and face - or maybe its just me who struggled with being in a hood all day?

    Anyone who want to see how it applied in my case can look at my blog on:

    http://sealedandsuffocating.blogspot.co.uk/2005_01_01_archive.html

    cheers for now,
    Sealed

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